My Gay Friends

TOPIC: Interpretive drift

SOURCE: My experience at Humboldt State University

DESCRIPTION: Before I came to HSU, I didn't have any friends that identified as gay. I didn't know anything about gay culture. I never really even thought about it. I wasn't the type of person that was obsessed with having gay friends and watching Ru Paul's drag race. I didn't a gay friend to go shopping with or check out boys with, like I often heard people saying. When I came to school I met a guy in my dormitory hall. We had a lot in common and I thought he was really cool so we started hanging out a lot. He introduced to me to all his friends and we would all hang out. I later found out that he was gay and not surprisingly, he also had many friends that were gay. From then on, I also had a lot of gay friends. Now most of my friends are gay and we always joke about I have so many gay friends. 

COMMENTARY / ANALYSIS: After having so many gay friends, I have seen how my views have changed on homosexuality and their rights. Before, it was never something I really thought about. But once I became close with the friends I now have, I experienced interpretive drift; as I became involved with them there was a slow and unacknowledged shift in my manner of interpreting events, as mentioned in Robbins. Before I thought it was silly when someone said they wished they had gay friends to do "gay" things with. Now that irks me because one of the most prominent lessons are that gay men and women have the same needs and wants and desires as everyone else. When we hang out we do normal things. We go to lunch. the beach, and just hang out. Some people think that gay men are all about sex, gossip, and plotting against each other. On my interpretive drift I have seen through the people I have met, that really is not the case.  They have just as dynamic personalities as anyone else. 

Eye Contact: Friendly & Fierce

TOPIC: practices

SOURCE: Personal observation of my own culture and the culture in Mozambique 

RELATION: In Wednesday Lab, as a class, we talked about differing cultures. We talked about how different cultures have different customs than our own. Though our personal etiquette seems normal to us, it is not to others. 

DESCRIPTION:

This last summer I went to South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland for a month. Each destination had its own set of colloquial customs.

In Mozambique (shortened to 'Mozam'), it was considered rude to look a person in the eye, even when having a one-on-one friendly conversation. In the Mozam culture, eye contact and extended eye contact was seen as aggressive and challenging. Having been told this before hand, my travel buddies and I kept this social rule in mind and made sure to advert our eyes or look down while having conversations, making eye contact as seldom as we could. As I would be having a conversation with a Mozam native, I always felt that I was being disrespectful by not maintaining eye contact because my own culture views eye contact as a sign of respect and confidence. 

When we would be walking around in public and in open markets I would try to scan my surroundings without making eye contact with any of the other pedestrians. Without realizing it, I would not only meet someone's eye level but I would keep my eyes locked on his/hers-- a habit I have in The States. I would suddenly realize I was being an awkward tourist when the pedestrian would return my gaze with an unfaltering challenging stare. None of these challenges that I instigated never did result in any sort of altercation. When I noticed I was mindlessly fixated on someone, I would hang my neck down and look to the floor to avoid being confrontational. 

COMMENTARY/ ANALYSIS:

It was interesting seeing the differing cultural rules on something as simple as eye contact. I assumed that the body language of eye contact across the board meant connectedness and showing the other participant of the conversation that you were present, listening, and interested. Anything otherwise meant the rude opposite. 

Though this new rule of eye contact was different, it wasn't illogical. It made sense to me that eye contact can also be interpreted as confrontational. It was still a challenge for me to simply remember not to make excessive or prolonged eye contact because it is second nature to me.